Dick Gozinya:To be fair, all that dredging of the St Clair river wasnt done to make the shipping channel deeper by removing more of the river bottom; it was done to remove all the chemical blobs left on the bottom of the river thanks to illegal dumping by the Dow chemical plant and the refineries on the Canadian side.

I grew up in that area (Port Huron). I've gone diving in the St Clair river many times with my brother. The stuff you find on the bottom of that river would make you not want to live on this planet anymore. My brother is able to bring up enough bottles and cans on each dive to pay for the air in his tanks. That plus all the lead fishing sinkers that he resells to the fishermen have pretty much paid for his diving hobby. It's disgusting really.

You (and especially your brother) are a far braver souls than I am, and I've swam in the Detroit. Diving in St. Clair is a new to me.

If you'd like to read some depressing news about rare childhood cancer clusters around the St Clair River...

There were many times growing up that the local newspaper would report a "spill" by Dow Canada a week or so after it happened.....and also advise us not to drink the water for a couple days. Gee, thanks for the heads up, farking Canucks.

BTW, i've been transplanted to the east coast for so long that i now call it soda, and want to correct my mother when we go visit and she tells us "there's pop in the fridge." My wife is from NY and had no idea what my mom was talking about. It was amusing to watch her grinding her gears trying to figure it out.

bhcompy:HMS_Blinkin: But don't worry, climate change is still a liberal hoax because it snowed in Minnesota, amirite?

But studies have shown that Huron and Michigan fell by 10 to 16 inches because of dredging over the years to deepen the navigational channel in the St. Clair River, most recently in the 1960s. Dredging of the river, which is on the south end of Lake Huron, accelerated the flow of water southward from the two lakes toward Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and eventually into the Atlantic Ocean.

Yes, let's blame it all on one scapegoat. Instead, maybe you should blame it just plain on nearsighted humans. Who'd have thought that dredging the waterways would mean more waterflow?

Troll-ing picture. That was diversion, not dredging. But I like to remind people of it.

enry:If they get smaller than Lake Champlain, does it get a chance at being Great?

shastacola:My parents live on Lake Huron,their dock is now completely out of the water and what used to be their shoreline is now covered in grass.

Good, now the state can come out, remeasure your parents' property and adjust the property tax to reflect the new larger plot of land. That should help our state economy. Could happen and I'm glad my property is land locked. Or in time, don't declare the property lakefront anymore and the value will drop as will the property taxes, if the lake drops far enough.

/Even if Lake Huron drops down to just a puddle, it will still be the greatest little lake because it's just so cuuute.

Michigan recently joined other Great Lakes states in passing the Great Lakes Compact, an agreement limiting large water withdrawals. Despite the fact that each fracking well can use up to five million gallons of locally-sourced water, the practice is exempt from regulation under the legislation implementing the Compact.

Deep Contact:Michigan recently joined other Great Lakes states in passing the Great Lakes Compact, an agreement limiting large water withdrawals. Despite the fact that each fracking well can use up to five million gallons of locally-sourced water, the practice is exempt from regulation under the legislation implementing the Compact.

I find it really funny which site you ended up copy and pasting that from. On a personal level. Thought it sounded familiar.

2009, yes. There's a bottled water loophole as well, for containers under 5.7 gallons.

I'm currently reading this, which pretty great so far and talks about the Compact but was written before it passed (in 06 I think).

Dick Gozinya:There were many times growing up that the local newspaper would report a "spill" by Dow Canada a week or so after it happened.....and also advise us not to drink the water for a couple days. Gee, thanks for the heads up, farking Canucks.

BTW, i've been transplanted to the east coast for so long that i now call it soda, and want to correct my mother when we go visit and she tells us "there's pop in the fridge." My wife is from NY and had no idea what my mom was talking about. It was amusing to watch her grinding her gears trying to figure it out.

Uh, I'm from the East Coast (Pgh, PA) and we call it Pop./sorry for threadjack

raerae1980:Dick Gozinya: There were many times growing up that the local newspaper would report a "spill" by Dow Canada a week or so after it happened.....and also advise us not to drink the water for a couple days. Gee, thanks for the heads up, farking Canucks.

BTW, i've been transplanted to the east coast for so long that i now call it soda, and want to correct my mother when we go visit and she tells us "there's pop in the fridge." My wife is from NY and had no idea what my mom was talking about. It was amusing to watch her grinding her gears trying to figure it out.

Uh, I'm from the East Coast (Pgh, PA) and we call it Pop./sorry for threadjack

StreetlightInTheGhetto:raerae1980: Dick Gozinya: There were many times growing up that the local newspaper would report a "spill" by Dow Canada a week or so after it happened.....and also advise us not to drink the water for a couple days. Gee, thanks for the heads up, farking Canucks.

BTW, i've been transplanted to the east coast for so long that i now call it soda, and want to correct my mother when we go visit and she tells us "there's pop in the fridge." My wife is from NY and had no idea what my mom was talking about. It was amusing to watch her grinding her gears trying to figure it out.

Uh, I'm from the East Coast (Pgh, PA) and we call it Pop./sorry for threadjack

Whether we say it's man-made or natural doesn't change the fact that it's happening. We could even take the "warming" out of its name, just so we can get past describing a thing and getting lost in name-calling. We are going through "climate turmoil"; maybe the marmosets have joined with the penguins and their evil plans are moving towards fruition.

Extreme weather affects us, and we're seeing more extremes. Maybe if we could talk about ways to live with it and ways to possibly slow it down, we might live long enough to move our cities inland and improve our water delivery infrastructure.

// I admit it: I have an agenda. I want a farking hovercraft; either that or an amphibious vehicle.

Muta:The story I saw tried to blame this on global warming for the low water levels. I wonder how much if this is due to more channels being dug around Niagara to power more hydro-electric plants. Do those increase the amount of water that can flow out of Lake Erie?

No, the guy above you said it was global warming so it is global warming the consensus so shut up.

Deep Contact:Michigan recently joined other Great Lakes states in passing the Great Lakes Compact, an agreement limiting large water withdrawals. Despite the fact that each fracking well can use up to five million gallons of locally-sourced water, the practice is exempt from regulation under the legislation implementing the Compact.

No, it's not. The compact is international, and includes the government of Canada as well as provincial governments, who don't permit that as an exception. Also, each US state implemented the compact as a simple "accept or not" vote of the negotiated compact language, so there's no wiggle room.

Also, five million gallons is only for the largest projects, most if it is re-usable or can be otherwise put back into the earth. For comparison to the apparently huge amount of water you state each well can use, Lake superior alone contains about 4 quadrillion gallons of water. All the fracking wells made to date in the US taking water from the lake and putting nothing back into the system would lower its level by less than 1 foot.

HMS_Blinkin:But don't worry, climate change is still a liberal hoax because it snowed in Minnesota, amirite?

Except the reduction in lake levels is being attributed to dredging. If you had read the entire article you would have seen this:

FTA: But studies have shown that Huron and Michigan fell by 10 to 16 inches because of dredging over the years to deepen the navigational channel in the St. Clair River, most recently in the 1960s. Dredging of the river, which is on the south end of Lake Huron, accelerated the flow of water southward from the two lakes toward Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and eventually into the Atlantic Ocean.

This is not about climate change. It is about the mismanagement of resources.

AccuJack:Deep Contact: Michigan recently joined other Great Lakes states in passing the Great Lakes Compact, an agreement limiting large water withdrawals. Despite the fact that each fracking well can use up to five million gallons of locally-sourced water, the practice is exempt from regulation under the legislation implementing the Compact.

No, it's not. The compact is international, and includes the government of Canada as well as provincial governments, who don't permit that as an exception. Also, each US state implemented the compact as a simple "accept or not" vote of the negotiated compact language, so there's no wiggle room.

Also, five million gallons is only for the largest projects, most if it is re-usable or can be otherwise put back into the earth. For comparison to the apparently huge amount of water you state each well can use, Lake superior alone contains about 4 quadrillion gallons of water. All the fracking wells made to date in the US taking water from the lake and putting nothing back into the system would lower its level by less than 1 foot.

/large numbers without context or comparison are derpy.

Put back into the earth full of fracking chemicals? It isn't. It never flows back into the lakes, and only 2% of the lakes are renewable.

And it does, currently, have an exemption. The Compact refers to withdrawals out of the Great Lakes Basin. Fracking withdrawals are exempt from the Michigan Water Withdrawal Assessment Tool.

AccuJack:Deep Contact: Michigan recently joined other Great Lakes states in passing the Great Lakes Compact, an agreement limiting large water withdrawals. Despite the fact that each fracking well can use up to five million gallons of locally-sourced water, the practice is exempt from regulation under the legislation implementing the Compact.

No, it's not. The compact is international, and includes the government of Canada as well as provincial governments, who don't permit that as an exception. Also, each US state implemented the compact as a simple "accept or not" vote of the negotiated compact language, so there's no wiggle room.

Also, five million gallons is only for the largest projects, most if it is re-usable or can be otherwise put back into the earth. For comparison to the apparently huge amount of water you state each well can use, Lake superior alone contains about 4 quadrillion gallons of water. All the fracking wells made to date in the US taking water from the lake and putting nothing back into the system would lower its level by less than 1 foot.

It's places from outside the drainage basin figuring themselves able to take the water (and yes, that includes part of Chicago). When a place inside the drainage basin uses lake water, the water drains back into the lake. When a place outside the basin takes the water, that water is gone.

That's cold, that's unfeeling, but build inside the basin if you want the water.

HMS_Blinkin:bhcompy: Yes, let's blame it all on one scapegoat. Instead, maybe you should blame it just plain on nearsighted humans. Who'd have thought that dredging the waterways would mean more waterflow?

I'll repeat my question from above: If Michigan and Huron are lower due to increased outflow into Erie/Ontario, why are the latter two lakes ALSO lower than average. Wouldn't those two lakes be higher after getting more water from Michigan/Huron, if dredging was the cause of all of this?

Oh, and you're talking about dredging in the 1960s. We're talking about the 2010s here.

Of course, to determine the effect of dredging the St. Clare plays on Lake Erie's levels you would have to compare pre-dredging average levels to post-dredging average levels. Simply looking at Lake Erie's current levels over the past several years and claiming that they are lower due to climate change proves nothing, especially when it is false.

Specifically, Ohio disagrees with your assessment that Lake Erie is currently lower than average. After discussing the effects of rainfall, temperature, wind has on evaporation of lake levels, it notes:

Notably above normal precipitation has fallen in the Lake Erie basin from February 2011 through December 2011. During this period, precipitation in the Lake Erie basin has averaged about 16 inches above normal. This precipitation and the combination of other hydrologic factors such as evaporation, have resulted in a rise of 25 inches in the level of Lake Erie during this period. Historic mean lake levels for the months of February and December are typically the same. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers predicts that, based on the hydrologic condition of the Great Lakes basin at the end of December 2011 and anticipated future weather conditions, the level of Lake Erie is expected to remain above normal for the foreseeable future.Source: http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/tabid/7829/default.aspx

I don't get why they keep asking for more dredging. If you make the canals, streams, and rivers deeper... won't the same amount of water just flow to the new bottom, leaving them just as shallow as before, only with higher shores? I could only see it working if they built concrete locks in exactly the width of the typical shipper, preventing any absorption or runoff. Of course that would utterly sterilize any ecosystem, but hey, it's not like anyone gets food from the Mississippi, eh?

Ronin_S:I'm hoping to get into water treatment/conservation when I graduate, just hope there's going to be water around to protect.

/studying greywater systems, really want one if I ever get a house.

a) keep doing what you're doing.

b) You don't necessarily have to own a house to work the greywater. You can set up pretty basic systems, from actually involving installation to just setting up a water saving ghetto engineering setup in the shower and wherever your laundry drains. Hell, you can just set up a herb garden near the closest door to the kitchen, use decent soap, and a basin to catch your dish rinse water in that you can then just toss straight out the door into the garden.

I'm born and raised Michigander. so saving water benefits me in a purely economic sense... I don't have to worry about rationing/shortages and I probably hopefully never will. But if I'm growing food in my garden to save money (amongst other reasons), reclaimed water is free and city water ain't.